It was in
my pocket. Fifteen minutes after the fracas, Mrs. Pinkerton came to my
room, completely dressed, and insisted upon coming in to hear all about
it and to overwhelm me with thanks and admiration. I was as modest as
heroes proverbially are, and then and there told her never to refer to
the subject again unless she addressed me as Bessie's betrothed.

We went riding together, Bessie, Mrs. Pinkerton, and I, the day after
this episode; and without any previous indication of an approaching
thaw, that singular old lady began to talk freely about what should be
worn at "the wedding," referring to it as though she had been the
principal agent in bringing it about.

CHAPTER III.

OUR MARRIAGE.

So it was that I brought my darling's mother around to consent, if not
with a very good grace, still with apparent cheerfulness, and she at
once took the direction of the nuptial preparations. I made a show of
consulting her about many things, but she invariably gave me to
understand that her experience and superior knowledge in such matters
were not to be gainsaid. I was willing to leave to her all the fuss and
frippery of preparing clothes for her daughter. It always seemed to me
that she had clothes enough, and clothes that were good enough for
married life. I couldn't understand why a young woman, on becoming a
wife, should need a lot of new and elaborate dresses, such as she had
never worn and never cared to wear, and an endless variety of
under-garments of mysterious and incomprehensible make, with frills and
fringes and laces and edgings, as if, up to that time, she had never had
anything next to her precious person, except what was visible to the
exterior world. And even assuming that she donned these things for the
first time as parts of a manifold and complicated wedding garment, why
should so much fine needle-work and delicate trimming be prepared to be
stowed away out of sight of prying mortals, for whose vision women are
presumed to dress themselves? Are they got up to show to friends and
excite envy, and to fill the minds of other young people with a sense of
the difficulties of getting married?

One day, when I happened in,--by accident, of course,--and the mother
happened to be out on one of her many pilgrimages to town, Bessie took
me up to her room in a half-frightened way, as if doing something that
she was afraid was terribly improper, and showed me a bewildering
profusion of these things, neatly